In existing medical information access and processing systems, to perform tasks such as: patient registration, recall of patient-specific information, posting available lab results to patient record, etc., a user navigates, e.g. by entering data into the necessary fields via an input device, such as a keyboard, mouse, etc., to a specific screen and/or form in the user interface from where the user could perform the desired tasks. The navigation to a patient record may begin with a screen displaying a list of patients. The user may select the desired patient by browsing the entire list of patients or by searching a subset of patient records obtained through an alpha-search based upon: the patient identification number, medical record number (MRN) and/or patient name. Once the user finds the patient record screen, the user may perform tasks such as: updating profile and/or admission/discharge/transfer (ADT) information, etc. for that patient by using e.g. a keyboard and/or a mouse. In such medical information access and processing systems there are numerous screens and the user may need to navigate through multiple screens before arriving at the desired screen to perform a clinical workflow task. This becomes cumbersome for repetitious tasks and, due to the required manual entry of data at those screens, is subject to human errors that may result in potential hazards.
One approach to minimize these hazards is to associate workflow contexts required in clinical workflows with unique identifiers. These identifiers include patient MRN to launch patient record screen, national drug code (NDC) code to launch medication literature screen, etc. This identifying data, is stored in a medium such as a smartcard or an RFID tag or encoded in a UPC symbol via barcode labels. This information may be used to expedite the clinical workflow process. For example, to view a patient record, the clinical user locates an RFID tag or barcode label, containing patient identifying information, e.g. the patient wrist bracelet. The clinical user may use an RFID or barcode reader near the patient to read that information and supply that information directly to the medical information access and processing system. The medical information access and processing system, in response, displays the corresponding patient clinical record on a display device. This eliminates manually entering the patient information, thus maximizing the probability of retrieving the correct medical information.
A prior system using this approach is illustrated in FIG. 1. FIG. 1 illustrates a pertinent portion of a medical information access and processing system 100. A barcode reader 108 is coupled to a hardware port 106 in the medical information access and processing system 100. The hardware port 106 interoperates with an adaptation layer, identified in FIG. 1 as a barcode adaptation layer 104. The barcode adaptation layer 104 interoperates with the healthcare executable application 102. In operation, a barcode is fabricated to contain data representing a workflow context, such as a patient identifier. The barcode reader 108 is able to read the data contained in the barcode, e.g. by being passed over the barcode, or having the barcode brought within view of the barcode reader 108. The hardware port 106 receives the scanned data from the barcode reader 108. This data is supplied to the barcode adaptation layer 104 which controls the operation of the barcode reader 108 through the hardware port 106, and provides the scanned data to the healthcare executable application 102.
The adaptation layer (e.g. the barcode adaptation layer 104) is an executable procedure for controlling a reader of a specific technology (e.g. the barcode reader 108). That is, the barcode adaptation layer 104 is programmed to interface a specific executable application (e.g. healthcare executable application 102) to a specific hardware communications port 106 (e.g. COM port) and a specific barcode reader hardware device 108 (e.g. from a specific vendor). The adaptation layer 104, thus, is the enhancement of the healthcare executable application 102 that provides functionality to integrate clinical workflows with barcode reader 108 device functions. Consequently, the barcode adaptation layer 104 is tightly coupled with the healthcare executable application 102 and the medical information access and processing system 100 hardware and the local hardware port 106 (i.e. COM port) to which the barcode reader 108 is directly attached. The overall flow of data from the bar code reader 108 is implemented as event data generated by the hardware port 106 and supplied to the barcode adaptation 104 upon reading a valid barcode sequence (typically initiated by depressing a trigger on the bar code reader 108). The adaptation layer 104 maps these events to appropriate executable procedures, performing corresponding functions in the clinical workflow process implemented by the healthcare executable application 102.
Such systems are typically restricted to a single healthcare executable application, a specific information reading technology and a reader appliance of a specific brand or from a vendor. Supplementing an existing healthcare executable application with additional appliances of a different technology requires custom modification to the healthcare executable application, i.e. the addition of an adaptation layer, and the addition of extra hardware and/or software modules. This is an onerous, expensive and long term project. Similarly, adding reading devices of same technology but from a different vendor involves an effort analogous to adding new technologies. In systems with multiple executable applications it is even more challenging to use multiple input devices to invoke different workflow tasks in different executable applications, because the respective executable applications require the same modifications.
In FIG. 2, a medical information access and processing system 200 includes multiple information readers having different reading technologies and/or from different vendors. A barcode reader 208a, a right tag (RT) RFID reader 208b and an RFID reader 208c manufactured by Siemens Business Systems (SBS) are coupled to the medical information access and processing system 200. The barcode reader 208a is coupled to a hardware input/output (I/O) port 206a, the RF RFID reader 208b is coupled to a hardware I/O port 206b and the SBS RFID reader 208c is coupled to a hardware I/O port 206c. The hardware I/O port 206a interoperates with an adaptation layer identified as barcode adaptation layer 204a, the hardware I/O port 206b interoperates an adaptation layer identified as RFID right tag adaptation layer 204b, and the hardware I/O port 206c interoperates with an adaptation layer identified as RFID SBS adaptation layer 204c. The barcode adaptation layer 204a, the RFID right tag adaptation layer 204b, and the RFID SBS adaptation layer 204c interoperate with the healthcare application 202.
As described above with respect to FIG. 1, the adaptation layers 204a, 204b and 204c control the operation of the readers, barcode reader 208a, RT RFID reader 208b, and the SBS RFID reader 208c through the corresponding hardware I/O ports, 206a, 206b, 206c, respectively. The adaptation layers 204a, 204b, 204c receive event messages containing data received from the associated reader 208a, 208b, 208c and supply this information to the appropriate executable procedures in the healthcare application 202, which responds by retrieving the appropriate medical information and supplying it to a display screen (not shown) at the location of the associated reader.
A system which permits the addition of additional or new reader technologies, and/or readers of the same technology from different vendors, without requiring expensive and time consuming programming of corresponding adaptation layers for each such reader is desirable.